


omnia vanitas

by cumaeansibyl



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (everything is very gentle tho), Autophilia, Collars, Dirty Talk, Dom Crowley (Good Omens), Illustrations, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Massage, Masturbation, NSFW Art, Nipple Clamps, No beta we fall like Crowley, Praise Kink, Sub Aziraphale (Good Omens), Vanity, but in a really nice way, but it's Aziraphale, look did you ever just want your lover to see themself the way you see them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:00:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29686416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cumaeansibyl/pseuds/cumaeansibyl
Summary: Aziraphale was made for luxury, for finery and indulgence. Crowley dresses him up and makes him feel pretty.Featuring gorgeous art by Robcrownorcollaron twitter!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 50
Kudos: 150
Collections: Society for the Promotion of Underappreciated Sex Acts (Good Omens Local 666), Top Crowley Library





	omnia vanitas

**Author's Note:**

> References to prior negotiation of limits, as well as to previous scenes that induced some performance anxiety, but nothing specific.
> 
> The English word “luxury” has its root in the Latin for extravagance, _luxuria_. The same word, in medieval Europe, was used for the sin of lust.
> 
> Meanwhile, the Latin _vanitas_ , which we now translate as “vanity,” signified not only unseemly pride in one’s appearance, but also emptiness or futility.
> 
> Crowley is _absolutely_ abusing these semantic ambiguities for his purpose, but he always did think Ecclesiastes was too depressing.

The oil Crowley likes best for him has a sweet, heavy scent, honey and spice, and Aziraphale feels himself relaxing when the familiar aroma drifts over him, even before Crowley’s hands glide up his back. He melts into the bed as hard, clever fingers strip the tension from the muscles along his spine, squeeze it out of his shoulders. The oil warms and soaks into his skin, filling him with a thick, sugary lassitude. 

Crowley rolls him over and smooths more oil into his skin, stroking over the thick, soft hair on his breasts and belly in tender circles. He avoids the most sensitive places, but Aziraphale isn’t quite aroused yet anyway; he’s drifting in sensation, far too relaxed for anything so energetic. It’s enough to feel the fond way Crowley’s hands cradle the heavy curve of his stomach, push and slide along the thick fat of his thighs, acknowledging his body’s strength and its need for gentle care.

At length Crowley brushes a hand through his hair, lifts his head, and coaxes him up off the bed. He’d be more than content to stay, but he follows obediently, perching on the tall padded stool and propping his feet on the lower rung. Drowsy with pleasure, his skin tingling with the memory of Crowley’s touch, he sways a little and Crowley steadies him with an indulgent chuckle. 

“Look up for me? That’s right.” Aziraphale parts his lips for Crowley to touch them with a rosy stain, light wet brushstrokes on the sensitive flesh; he lowers his eyelids demurely so Crowley can darken his eyelashes with old-fashioned cake mascara. He lifts his chin to let the ornate Art Nouveau collar of gold vines and diamonds settle around his flushed throat, and a little thrill goes through him when Crowley snaps the clasp shut. It wakes him up the rest of the way, and that pleasant floaty feeling begins its transformation into something subtler, more profound. He belongs to Crowley now: a cherished possession, to be sure, but still subject to the demon’s command, and bound to obey. 

“Beautiful,” Crowley murmurs, leaning in close enough so Aziraphale can feel cool breath on his painted mouth. Aziraphale wants dearly to stretch up and kiss him, but the slight pressure of the collar, its metal not yet warmed on his skin, reminds him: he’s not to reach out and take what he wants, only to accept what Crowley decides he ought to have. What Crowley says he deserves.

“Oh, _very_ good,” Crowley says, seeing how Aziraphale restrains himself, and the little shiver of desire he can’t entirely suppress. “So good for me. Did you want a kiss, pretty angel?”

“Yes, please,” Aziraphale says, trying to look both obedient and kissable. Crowley grins and leans in again, then darts a serpentine tongue between Aziraphale’s parted lips, startling him with a sudden flicker of wet heat. He gives a rather mortifying squeak — it seems no matter how many times Crowley does that, it’ll never stop making him jump — but manages to keep his seat on the stool.

Crowley laughs. “Don’t want to mess up your makeup.” He cups Aziraphale’s shoulder fondly, rubs his thumb along the round slope of muscle. “Okay, so I absolutely did that on purpose and I’m not mad you flinched, but from now on I want you to stay very still for me.” He looks Aziraphale in the eye, the yellow heat of his gaze mesmerising. “Can you do that, pretty angel?”

“Yes, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. Just the feel of that name rolling off his tongue settles him further into the space where he belongs to Crowley, and a little sigh of relief escapes him.

Crowley slides his hand down to cup Aziraphale’s small, heavy breast, rolling the pink peak of his nipple between thumb and forefinger, a gentle tingling friction that pulls at something between Aziraphale’s legs. “Wanna be sure this is standing up nice and tight,” Crowley says, and he opens his free hand to show off a set of sweet little flower-shaped clamps and their joining chain. Instead of pinching like tweezers, they have four little golden screws arranged to press in on the nipple from all sides; Crowley affixes the first with infinite care, the forked tip of his tongue caught between his teeth. 

“Just enough to stay on,” he says, tightening the final screw on the first one. “No pain, okay? Well…” He looks up and winks. “Maybe just a tiny little bit.” 

He tugs at the chain to test the grip, and Aziraphale nods, even as he has to bite his lip to suppress a gasp: it’s exactly what Crowley intends, a bright spark of pleasure that’s almost but not quite too much, easing back into a mild but persistent pressure when Crowley releases the chain. “Good, that’s right. Just wanna decorate you, show off how beautiful you are.”

Several contrary thoughts come into Aziraphale’s head at that — _show off to whom_ is one, _not very beautiful at all_ is another. He closes his eyes against them as Crowley begins to set the second clamp. He can’t help having such thoughts sometimes, no one can, but in Crowley’s bedroom, wearing Crowley’s collar, he is not permitted to give them space. Perhaps they will leave him be, if only he can focus hard enough on being good for Crowley.

He feels a cool, tickling sensation glide up his arms, and he sees that Crowley is draping thin gold chains around his shoulders, attaching them to the collar, creating sparkling cascades over his thick, soft upper arms. Next comes a length of near-transparent silk, a brilliant sea-blue that echoes the enamel flourishes of his collar. Crowley wraps it around Aziraphale from behind, the fine texture of the fabric warming where his hands press it smooth over bare skin. “Nothing’s as soft as your skin,” Crowley murmurs, “but this comes close.” He strokes the sensitive sides of Aziraphale’s belly through the silk, and the angel has to hold on to the stool to keep from arching his back as an intense shiver runs through him. “Oh, you’re so good for me,” Crowley murmurs, his breath cool on Aziraphale’s heat-flushed cheek. “So sweet for me, pretty angel, just for me.”

Aziraphale can’t help a noise at that, it’s so much: those maddeningly gentle fingers, the admiration and desire, the soft possessiveness of _just for me_. He realizes Crowley started with the massage on purpose to lower his defences, make him dreamy and pliant so he won’t fight that soft, insinuating voice and the praise it lavishes on him. Within the limits they’ve discussed, Crowley can do anything to him, but he’s not interested in making this painful or difficult; that’s for another night, perhaps, heavy leather and steel, harsh orders. Not this soft, sensual space Crowley’s enfolded him in, safe and warm as the shadow of his wings, where he can try to hear and believe what Crowley wants to tell him.

Crowley arranges the silk over Aziraphale’s arms like a shawl and helps him down off the stool, circling him with an appreciative hiss. “Vanity might suit you even better than your other sins,” he says. “You wear it well.”

“I’m not —” Aziraphale starts, then bites his lip, eyes wide with apprehension. Stupid, stupid mistake! To argue with Crowley, when he’s been so kind! But Crowley only laughs.

“Not vain? That’s right, you haven’t even looked yet.” He takes Aziraphale’s hand and leads him back toward the bed, where he now sees some tall piece of furniture, with a curved top, covered by more blue silk. Crowley flicks the drape away, drawing it down with a flourish to pool at Aziraphale’s feet like the waters of the sea, revealing a majestic old cheval glass in mahogany. “‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’[1]”

Aziraphale sees himself shining all cream and gold in the deep shadows of the glass, the lush curves of his body silvered by the room’s soft light. His rosy lips, parted as in yearning for a kiss; his wide eyes glittering under darkened lashes; the pink flush of arousal on his face and neck, the deeper colour of his cock where it stands erect against his belly.

“Oh my goodness,” he says faintly. The feel of silk and precious metal against his skin is sumptuous, thrilling, and the white jewels spark fire at his throat, drawing his eye again and again to the collar Crowley has claimed him with. He shivers in the warm, scented air, barely able to recognize himself in the gleaming vision of luxury and vanity in the mirror.

“Look at yourself,” Crowley hisses in his ear. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to see you like this, all luscious and decadent. Adorned with costly jewels, anointed with precious oilsss.” Crowley’s narrow, sly face hovers over Aziraphale’s shoulder, watching the picture they make together in the glass as he brushes cool fingers gently over the crinkled tips of Aziraphale’s nipples, pink centers of gold-petaled flowers. “Positively immoral luxury, this. And it looks _so good_ on you, doesn’t it, my pretty angel...”

Aziraphale isn’t meant to respond, and he doesn’t intend to, but a little whine escapes him — hardly audible, save to ears attuned to the slightest hint of sin. “That’s right, I knew you would feel it,” Crowley says, lips parting in a wicked smile. “Hold out your hand.”

Aziraphale extends his right hand, slowly, unable to look away from his own dazzled eyes in the mirror. He feels a slow, warm trickle of oil poured over his fingers and into his palm, playing back and forth over his skin until his hand is covered. The thick, honeyed scent of it rises in the warm air. Then Crowley’s own hand grasps his wrist, guides him to touch himself. “Go on, take hold,” Crowley purrs in his ear. “Not too tight, now.”

Aziraphale wraps his hand around his erect cock with a little sigh, keeping his touch light as Crowley instructs. He doesn’t move it yet; Crowley will tell him when it’s time for that. He’s struggled in this space with trying to anticipate what Crowley might want of him, having spent so long taking commands from a hierarchy that never helped to prevent error, only reprimanded it after the fact. The first few times he and Crowley had played this game he had carried the heavy burden of that experience into it, desperate to guess everything Crowley wanted before he had to ask, fearing to see disappointment in those beautiful yellow eyes. Crowley isn’t asking him to read his mind, though, or to see the future. He tells Aziraphale exactly what he wants of him, in plain language with no hints or implications, and he expects nothing more than obedience to the letter.

“Perfect,” Crowley says, confirming his thought. “Now. Stroke your cock for me. Nice and slow.” 

Aziraphale draws his half-open hand up and down over his shaft, spreading his palmful of oil with a thick, lewd sound, and then takes hold of himself properly. The languid rhythm he begins with is nowhere near what he wants, but what he really wants is to prove how ready he is to do whatever Crowley commands, hard or soft, fast or slow. How good he is ready to be.

“Putting on a little show, are we?” Crowley says, his smile a white spark in the shadows. “I appreciate the gesture, pretty angel, but this isn’t for me. This is for you.”

“For me?” Aziraphale asks. Questions are always, always permitted between them, no matter what the scenario, though it still sends up a little flare of anxiety to question Crowley when he holds the leash.

“As if it isn’t always.” Crowley flickers his tongue at a tender earlobe. “You already know how much I love to look at you, don’t you?”

“I do.” The demon is being careful, just now, not to make this about his own desire, but Aziraphale knows the taste of it as well as he knows his love.

“Course you do. But I want _you_ to love it. I want you to enjoy it just as much as I do. I want you to feel what I feel when I look at you.” Aziraphale drops his gaze, embarrassed, his hand faltering, and Crowley growls. “Eyes front, Aziraphale, don’t stop. Tell me what you see.”

“I…” Aziraphale forces himself to look in the mirror again. He can’t think of a single appropriate adjective, or even an inappropriate one. “I’m very… pink,” he says at last.

Crowley laughs, not the low chuckle he uses in a seduction but a bright, happy cackle. “That you are, sweetheart.” He taps Aziraphale’s hand, which has gone still, holding his cock. “Come on, now. I don’t want to leave marks on your pretty pink skin tonight.” Unspoken was the threat: _but I will if you make me_. “Tell me what you see.”

Aziraphale watches himself in the mirror as he starts his slow strokes again. He thinks perhaps he’s meant to look at himself objectively, as if at a stranger, but he can’t pretend the body in the mirror belongs to someone else when he can see _and_ feel his slick hand as it squeezes and rubs, the silky skin of his cock shining with oil, deep red against the paler skin of his belly. “You put all these beautiful things on me. It’s so… opulent. And I feel…” Heat flares deep within him and shoots up to his head, so fast he feels dizzy, and he lets out a low moan.

“Go on,” Crowley whispers. He lays his hand gently on Aziraphale’s arm; Aziraphale can feel his forearm muscles flexing under that touch as he works his cock with slow, indulgent strokes. He’s flushed bright pink now, as far down as his chest, and it looks beautiful with the gold chains and the sea-blue silk. Something about that catches at him, and he sees all at once that this is not meaningless ostentation, or a mere greedy show of expense. Crowley has chosen, with a master’s eye for richness of color and form, the precious things that accentuate and heighten the beauty of his body in its rush of blood and breath, in its surrender to love and pleasure, in all its living glory, a most precious vessel for Aziraphale’s sacred fire. 

“ _Divine_ ,” Aziraphale cries softly, and Crowley echoes it with a moan, pressing up hard against Aziraphale for a moment, thrusting his clothed erection against Aziraphale’s bare backside before he regains control of himself. “Oh, Crowley, what you’ve done to me…”

“Don’t stop,” Crowley hisses. “ _Tell me_.”

“I... I’ve never seen what you see,” Aziraphale says, breathless with the pleasure rising up hot and liquid in him, stoked as much by the strange, unexpected beauty of his own self in the mirror as by the quickening pulls of his hand. “But I look so, oh…” He struggles to articulate it, because it sounds mad, it’s absolute rank narcissism. “I can’t say…”

“Hmm? Can’t say what?” Crowley draws up the chain connecting Aziraphale’s nipples, tugging and releasing in a way that makes the clamps somehow feel tighter, their grip sharper. Aziraphale cries out.

“I want… I want to t-touch myself,” he groans, his free hand trembling at his side. “Please, Crowley.”

“He says, while he’s having a wank,” Crowley laughs, but he’s already taking Aziraphale’s free hand and bringing it up to his stomach. “Show me how you want to touch yourself, pretty angel. Tell me where it feels good.”

“My, m-my breasts,” Aziraphale whispers, cradling one in his hand, feeling its delicious weight, and lust roars up in him — lust _for himself_ , for his own exquisite flesh, heavy and sweet like the perfumed oil scenting the air. “My thighs,” he says, gripping a handful, shuddering at the unbearably erotic sensation of his fingers sinking into that glorious fat and muscle. “Oh, when you fuck my thighs, Crowley, I never understood that but now I see —”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Crowley says, but he grabs a handful of Aziraphale’s other thigh and squeezes, pulling their bodies together, rolling his hips to grind against Aziraphale’s plush arse again. 

Aziraphale can’t stop staring, entranced by the lavish curves of his hips, the gorgeous round weight of his belly, how his body is at once strong and delicate and luscious, in a way he’s never truly seen until now. He watches the desperation in his hand’s movements, jerking his prick in long, tight pulls, watches himself breathing harder in the mirror, his red mouth open and wanton.

“I want, Crowley, I want,” he moans. “I’m… I’m _beautiful_ , I want _myself_ , I’ve never imagined that was even possible...”

“Yeah you do, you gorgeous thing, you fucking hedonissst,” Crowley hisses in his ear, clutching his hips now, watching him hungrily in the mirror. “Fuck yourself for me, pretty angel, _beautiful_ angel, make yourself come for me, _watch_ yourself come for me —”

Aziraphale’s hand tightens on his cock, hot and lush and wet, and then he _is_ coming, a long magnificent shudder that he can see rolling through his body: his thighs tensing, his belly quivering, his mouth going slack with pleasure. He meets his own eyes for one ecstatic moment and it feels like his reflection is coming too, watching him come as he watches it come, a vicious pleasure that spirals higher and higher until he gives himself up to it with a cry, his knees giving out and his head dropping back on Crowley’s shoulder. 

“That’s it, pretty angel, so good for me,” Crowley croons, rocking him gently as he draws it out for himself, long slow strokes of his shaft with the thumb pressing down tight, avoiding his cockhead when it grows oversensitive, finally exhaling the last of his pleasure on a trembling sigh. “You beautiful, shameless thing. Never any shame, not for my good, good angel.”

When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is the terrible mess he’s made of his own reflection, his thick white spend dripping down the mirror. It ought to be embarrassing now that the adrenaline’s receded, but already his prick is half-hard again from the way it looks like he’s come all over himself — which he’s done before, of course, but not like this. Not because he’d brought himself to climax by looking _at_ himself. 

“Oh, that’s filthy,” Crowley says, frank admiration in his voice. “Look what a nasty thing you’ve done. You’re not even sorry, are you?”

“No,” Aziraphale says, rather surprised to find that he isn’t, at all.

“Good.” There’s a snap, and then Aziraphale is bracing himself on the upright supports of the mirror, and he can feel Crowley’s lean nakedness behind him. “You said something about these?” Crowley says, and one slippery hand steals between his legs, slicking his soft, sensitive inner thighs with oil, while the other strokes his prick back to full hardness. Aziraphale moans, dazed already with rising desire for Crowley’s body, for his own, for their bodies together entwined and striving for pleasure, all through the night that lies before them. 

He leans in, as Crowley’s weight presses against him, and kisses himself in the glass.

### Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 1:2 KJV.↩

**Author's Note:**

> My personal stylist [voidbat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidbat) has a major Lalique fixation in addition to our shared Good Omens fixation, so when [this collar](https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8a8u2ZI7O1qhkl5go1_1280.jpg) came along we both had the same idea at the same time.
> 
> So then I went over to Discord and talked to the horny artists who draw Crowley in a collar all the time, and I was like "hey you know what Aziraphale should wear this collar and also be super pretty," and the monarch of the horny collar artists, Rob [crownorcollar](https://twitter.com/crownorcollar), was like ["yes you're right,"](https://twitter.com/crownorcollar/status/1357949247530799105?s=20) and at that point I basically had to write the fic. 
> 
> So I told Rob what I was doing and they came back with the piece you see in the fic and I fucking died, goodbye everybody I am gone, holy SHIT. I am not going to stop screaming anytime soon either. I fucking love this fandom.


End file.
